Strange Familiarity
by Welt Ende
Summary: Leo was a total stranger to Alice, and so was she to him. Yet why did he felt such a strange familiarity with her...? The feeling he felt wasn't romantic love, neither it was hate, was it more... like the feeling towards a younger sibling? Unknown to him, Alice was feeling the same, she didn't knew him yet felt nostalgic... And the two don't even know each other's name and yet...


**A/N.: And here I am starting another fic while I must finish the others... well since it is a one-shot I guess it can be alright? Actually I wrote this fic because I always wondered since Leo had the past Glen's souls at his side and also got the melody "Lacie" surely from their influence, if he was feeling somehow familiar about Alice. It didn't seemed to be the case in the Pandora Hearts canon but I have decided to make it like it in my fic! Please enjoy the story and review it if you liked it! And the story is taking place during the "Unbirthday Party" and in the same Drama CD about it!**

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The weather was fine, the wind was clear and the flowers were in bloom; just like Oscar Vessalius said earlier after cutting off the sibling fight between Gilbert and Elliot Nightray; it was indeed a perfect day for a tea party. It was a rare moment where a member of the Nightray and Vessalius Dukedom were under the gentle sunlight, sharing a cup of tea together despite being originally on bad terms with each other. All that is because that the Vessalius were the descendants of the Hero of the Sablier Tragedy, Jack Vessalius while the Nightray were allied with the clan that caused this same tragedy, the Baskerville Clan. Even though 100 years passed since then, the Nightray descendants are still being discriminated for that which lead them to hate the Vessalius in return; claiming them to be the cause of their suffering. However Elliot Nightray and Oz Vessalius managed to slightly change that way of thinking for them after interacting and knowing more about each other, and were hoping to one day change that common view of their two families to make them finally get along with each other thus ending all the conflicts.

Soon the tea party turned into a search for who was Oz's younger sister who was now ironically taller than him because he got a void of 10 years after being send into the Abyss forcefully during his Coming of Age Ceremony _―_ Ada Vessalius' secret boyfriend as she informed her uncle Oscar, about it into one of the letters she send to him during her school time. Thus Oz and Gilbert went through all the possibilities and questioned most of the people belonging their acquaintances about wherever if they knew anybody fitting the description of the boyfriend that no one knows. There were a few suspicions about a certain blond Nightray with heterochromia quite familiar with Gilbert but since the idea seemed to impossible for them, they quickly dismissed that idea. And a young man of rather short stature walked as he sighed in a slightly tired manner. He had messy shoudler-length black hair and wore a pair of round glasses on his face, he also wore a black overcoat over a white undershirt with a large collar that folded over the collar of his overcoat, black dress pants and dress shoes and a large purple ribbon tied in a bow. It was the valet of Elliot Nightray, his name is Leo.

 _'Hm... Maybe running away from Oz-kun without Elliot was a bad idea, huh? He would surely be angry at me because of it later on, surely calling it an "action worthy of a failure of a valet" again...? Not that it does anything to me, I will just listen to his blabblings until he get tired...'_ Earlier Oz quickly ran back to them despite having came to them earlier and left later on, once again he asked them in a unnaturally panicked manner if wherever they knew about Ada's lover or know, even though Leo answered him that he knew that it was a member of the Nightray brothers, he didn't knew which one of them it was. Since he was getting a little hysterical about it and trapped Elliot into his endless shoulder shaking interrogation, Leo took the chance given to him when Oz was busy with Elliot to escape (much to his master's anger as he screamed him to come back but couldn't move from his spot because Oz acted as an incredible anchor).

Though it was kind of funny for the usual fierce Elliot to get overwhelmed by Oz who's usually acting like a puppy towards him. And somehow Oz's protectiveness towards his sister reminded him of the Nightray siblings who were against Elliot taking him as his valet, no matter what kind of family there were in, it is good to know that older sibling treasures their younger sibling! Though the older brother didn't had the courage to ask his little sister about the person she liked...

" _―_ Hm?" Leo who noticed that without noticing he accidentally walked towards the buffet where all the food were situated for this party; all kind of foods yes, cake in order to accompany the tea, some hot soup to drink for those who would wish for something saltier to eat, and also a mountain of meat _―_ Wait, a mountain of meat?! Rather than in the buffet, it seemed more that the mountain of meat itself was gathered onto a single plate. But who on earth could eat such a large amount of meat...? No, rather who on earth could eat such a large amount of food simply! The mountain of meat seemed to be even taller than him, and he wasn't much happy to be depassed in height just by a pile of food! Thinking about the kind of giant who could eat such an amount, he found himself curiously searching for the one who put everything on that plate with his gaze only to find...

 _'Oh...?'_ What he found wasn't some kind of giant like he was expecting (or rather there was nobody like this in this tea party, he was pretty much sure of it) but surprisingly it was a girl that seemed to be 14 years old, she has purple eyes and long black hair and two side plaits with chain pieces at the ends. She wears a red coat with a white diamond design, a black tight skirt and laced-up white, heeled boots. He remembered her as Oz's chain, the fearsome Blood-stained Black Rabbit that the whole Pandora organization feared but also known as 'B-Rabbit', yet she didn't seemed as scary than her name said but looked like an actual human being. Yet that girl seems to be truly a Chain as she managed to sense some of Humpty Dumpty's 'scent' on Elliot... no, there is no confirmation about it but she actually noticed that something was wrong with him, it gaves him all the reasons for keeping him and Elliot away from her, but still...

"Yet, why do you seems to be in such a bad mood?"

"HAH?" Leo unintentionally let his voice out which caught Alice's attention as she stopped to dive into her meat moutain to look at him with a rather fierce expression not unlike Elliot's when he was interracting with Oz but strangely it didn't fazed Leo much because he must became used with his master's usual temperament. Thus he repeated to her calmly, "I was asking why you seemed to be in such a bad mood? Don't you like it? The meat."

"What a rude question! I LOVE MEAT! Or are you blind enough to not being able to see it?!" Alice roared at him angrily while Leo didn't took much notice of it as he looked at her in a more puzzled manner yet carrying some interest though it didn't showed on his eyes because they were hidden behind his glasses. "Then why were you frowning when you were eating it?"

"...?!"

"If you love meat so much then why did you seemed to be angry when eating it? Did you perhaps got tired of the taste?"

"What a foolish thing to say! There is nothing better than large chunk of meat filled with juices, tender a well-cooked covered with sauce! I was just _―_ "

"...You were just?" He repeated and was waiting for her to finish her sentence patiently but after a few seconds of silence, she started to tremble; one would normally think that the girl isn't feeling well or that she is crying but for some reason he doesn't know, or perhaps after years of dealing with Elliot, he start to back away not in a scared manner but to decrease the effects of the soon-to-be explosion on him, and then the countdown started; 3... 2... 1...!

"GAH _―_! WHY SHOULD I EVEN CARE ABOUT THAT GUY?! HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE MY SERVANT YET HE IS ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT OTHERS THAN ME, HIS MASTER! THERE IS NO REASON FOR ME TO CARE SO WHY I AM FEELING SO, AAARGHHH _―_!" Her roar was so impressive that he was pretty sure that even Oz who was meters far away could hear it and cowers in fear. So in clear she was just jealous, right? But she couldn't understand it so she just tried to calm her anger with gulping down enormous quantity of meat? It was kind of amusing to see...

 ** _―_ _ **To think that she still likes meat so much even now...**_**

 _'―?!'_ He almost thought hearing one of the voices that always haunted him since childhood, one of the voices that made Elliot had a contract with Humpty Dumpty in order to save his life back then, one of the few voices who were really familiar with the girl in front of him...

"What's wrong Shaggy Glasses? Got a cat in your tongue? You should eat more meat, not that I would have given you any of mine though." Alice was back into her less but still grumpy moods as she even chewed the bone meats down, Leo couldn't help but be impressed by Chain's teeth strength. But then soon the nickname that she gave him made him frown, "'Shaggy Glasses'...?"

If Elliot were to call him like that, Leo would surely beat him up just like the other time when he dared to call him 'shorty'... actually even if he show care to Ada, if a woman were to insult him in a really insulting manner, he wouldn't hesitate to beat her up along with that... yet, why did he felt himself forgiving that Chain girl? Her way of talking was rude, she was rude and really rude, but...

 _ **―**_ ** _I've told her again and again to fix that way of talking but she doesn't want to listen to me at all..._**

 _ **―Ahaha! Like mother like daughter, both were neither people who would listen to others after all**_ _ **!**_

 _'Here they go again...'_ Now he was absolutely sure of it; it was those voices again. Yet it seemed different than during the time he used to often listen to them in the past, he didn't felt the need to cover his ears anymore, rather it seemed that some of the feelings of those spirits were directed towards the meat-eating girl in front of them, was rabbit even carnivorous to begin with? It shouldn't be possible but there were legends were B-Rabbit devoured humans in the past, and the way Alice only shoved all that quantity of cooked meat into her mouth only strengthened that possibility. Yet from the spirits, he could feel their feelings, not like when they were trying to manipulate him into doing what they wanted, but just pure innocent and caring feelings about the girl in front of them which made him wonder, what kind of relationship did they held with her?

"...Then why don't you try to say it out? What you have on the heart? I'll stay here and listen until you are done." He said as he took a cup of tea.

Alice frowned at him, why was he asking her that? The time when they met at Sablier's leftovers, she felt a strange uneasiness upon seeing him, not to forget the strange familiar yet unfamiliar scent she smelled on the boy that is always with him and who Oz always get into a fight with. Alice has no memories of her past, just the awareness that she is B-Rabbit and a few fragments that she and Oz managed to take back, otherwise she know nothing. Yet for some reason she felt a strange familiarity with the young man in front of her, and it isn't about the few times they've met in the past with Oz and Elliot. It seemed more far away... yet she couldn't remember neither could she put a name on that feeling, it was annoying that she couldn't remember but there was no reason to turn that anger to him, she felt. It was unusual of herself to think like that too... so hesitantly she put her meat back on her plate, she opened her mouth _―_

"...Oz, is always worrying about others... and since he is my servant, he should only worry about me..." She wanted originally to scream to the heavens like she did earlier so she was confused over the fact that she was acting like this to him. Leo, him, was surprised over that. Normally Chains would be the tools and their Contractors their masters, but there was also Chains who were using their Contractors... Alice must be the one who is too proud to be labelled as a servant then forcefully turned the tables and made Oz accept it like that, hm?

"Then you should be aware that I am Elliot's valet, I am his servant too right?"

"Yeah but what's the point here? I thought we were talking about me!"

"Wait a second, I am coming at that matter right now. But you are aware that I am not forced to always agreeing with him, to not always doing as he wishes. Though valets must answer their masters' desires, I do have that kind of liberty because I am also a living being, and so is Gilbert-sama who used to be Oz-kun's valet."

"Muu... Stop trying to make everything so complicate and go to the point of the matter already!" Yet when Leo turned his gaze hidden by his glasses onto her, Alice felt herself shrinking as if she was facing Sharon's aura when she was asking her to call her 'Onee-sama' back then and had no choice but to listen him in silence.

"What I am saying is that Oz-kun too is deserving that kind of liberty. You are always centering everything onto yourself but you shouldn't forget the others around you. You wouldn't want to be forced to do anything against your wishes right? Try to take other's feelings into considerations."

 _'Though I would never believe that me of all people is lecturing her about that...'_ It's not like he took consideration of other's feelings before becoming Elliot's valet. Only after he met Elliot, he started to go towards others, he started to interact with others...

 _'Forcing me to do anything against my wishes...'_ Alice pondered silently as she pouted, she didn't understood. Oz was her belonging, shouldn't she has the right to treat her belonging in the way she want... of course it didn't meant that she wanted something unfortunate to happen to Oz... after all each time he was feeling down she couldn't help but feel the same, was it due to the link between a Contractor and his Chain? It was even enough to affect her appetite, to make her feel that her beloved meat meal become tasteless or to make the sweet cakes tastes bitter...

 _―_ Yet if, just what if, just like this shaggy glasses man said she was always forced to do something that she didn't wanted to, just like when she was still trapped in the Abyss and forced to do nothing else but fighting other Chains for her own survival... yes, she would definitively hate it. She would definitively despise that idea itself...

Seeing that his words starting to have an effect on her because of how silent she became and the way her eyes looked now at lost on what she should do or what she should think, Leo smiled slightly before asking her again: "Then I shall ask you again, why do you hate when Oz-kun is kind to others?" His voice became kinder before he even noticed.

Alice repeatedly stabbed her fork inside the well-cooked meat thus making the juice inside it spill out, after repeating the motion again and again until the juice stopped to flow out so openly and with Leo still patiently waiting for her response, "...Oz, today he spent his day on asking who his sister liked right?"

"Yeah, we could all see that." He literally jumped on them before interrogating on them with teary eyes after all...

"...And when I tried to ask her for him, he immediately went to silence me..."

"Hm... I guess that you asked her to directly. Being straightforward is good but being too much of it would make the other party feel awkward to answer."

"...It feels like that sister of him is going to take Oz away from me..."

"..."

 _'Hoh... So in the end it is just_ that _, isn't it?'_ Leo thought with his glasses shining in interest. But seeing on how she reacted about it earlier, it seemed that she didn't knew what she was feeling herself. It was as if he was hearing one of those girl characters in the books he was reading, those who weren't even aware that they fell in love with a young man in their surrondings but still expressed signs of jealousy about it and since they are still oblivious to their own feelings, can't understand and become annoyed because of it.

However it wasn't a fiction but reality, and the girl wasn't human but a Chain... was it even possible for a Chain to feel that kind of human feeling? Was the girl in front of him even a Chain to begin with? Leo felt doubts rising inside him along with the whispers of the spirits that only he could see start to wavers in response, yet he pushed it away to ask her: "So in clear you are jealous, aren't you?"

"Jealous...? Oh! I know that! It is from a delicious book called 'romance' and taste bitter! No, jealousy taste bitter while romance taste bittersweet! Sharon taught it to me!" Alice proudly said as she puffed her unexistant chest out in a way to brag about her knowledge but Leo just wore a pokerface about it...

"..." Nope, it wasn't that. Now that he thought about it, it seemed there were many rumors going on about the granddaughter of the Rainsworth duchess having a maiden attitude as she is particuliarly passioned about romances novels, good tea, shota-boys and younger sisters type-loli... Yep, better forget about that. Leo coughed on purpose in order to stop before Alice goes too far into her explanations, just by seeing the girl shivers at the name of 'Sharon' when she pronounced it gave him a small idea of what the latter is usually doing to the former and he didn't wished to know further about it despite his immense thirst for knowledge; there are things that are better be left unknown after all...

"Let me rephrase that; you are angry when Oz-kun pay attention to someone else than you, is that right?"

"Yeah! It is!"

"But Oz-kun and Miss Vessalius, I mean Oz-kun's sister, are only siblings or a family if you want, and it is normal for family members to worry about each other. So there is no reason to be angry."

"...Family...? Is that 'family' so important?" Alice frowned upon hearing the word, it was as if she never heard it before while Leo was pensive about something else; his only family was his mother but the latter died when he was at a young age and he doesn't remember much of her now... so maybe he can relate a little to what she thinks currently, but after meeting Elliot he started to considers everyone at the orphonage of Fianna as his younger siblings and now treasures them greatly. So yes, to him it is important. But would she accept that kind of answer, her?

"Hm... Well from an human's point of view yes they are. But there is no reason to be worried about that, Oz-kun wouldn't leave your side because of it, didn't he often tried to protect you despite all the danger? ...Or I think?"

"...Yeah, he did. Which is really stupid from him! I AM the Chain so I should protect my servant!" Though she is still saying contradictive things without noticing, it seems that she is at least worried about Oz's recklessness and doesn't want to put him in danger.

"So? What Oz-kun said you were to him?"

"...He said that I was amazing... that we were alike..." Alice's frown in order to try to remember of Oz's words now turned into a smile as she clearly remember them specially the end, " _―_ AND THAT WE ARE COMRADES!" She screamed back to heavens but unlike the angry shout, it was more of a joyful and happy one.

Leo couldn't help but smile upon seeing this, yet he felt himself questioning why he helped the girl he just met officially so much. Was it because she was someone important to Oz whom he was in good terms with? He definitively wasn't in love with her yet it was a familiar feeling, just like the one he felt towards the children that were at the orphanage when he and Elliot often came to visit them.

"See? It wasn't that difficult, right? So there's no need to worry." He flashed an eye-closed smile to her. Alice made a 'Hmph!' sound as she huffed away slightly, it was then that Leo felt himself dodging an incoming strike... which happened to be a meat skewer that almost broken his glasses with the speed and force threw in it.

"...Err...?" What was she doing? He didn't understood. Yet Alice pouted slightly upon seeing him dodging her strike, "Why did you dodged it?!"

"No, I should be asking, what were you even trying to do...?"

"Hmph! I rarely share my meat with anyone, yet this is a one-lifetime only of chance, do you intend to waste it Four-Eyes?!"

...Oh? So now they were passed from 'Shaggy Glasses' to 'Four-Eyes'...? It seemed that there was some progress compared to earlier, but Leo couldn't help but sighs at how she calls people by the nicknames she gave them and not by their names... though Oz seems to be an exception, hm... It was indeed interesting. Or rather was it her way to thanks him? It was so clumsy... Leo put both his hands in front of him to act like some kind of defense, "Hm... I think that I'll pass, since you seems to enjoy it so much then go ahead and enjoy it."

 _'Besides I just had tea, and I doubt that tea and meat would go well together...'_

"Is that so? For once that I allow such a thing what a waste! But since you refused it means more meat for me!" With one bite she ate the whole meat skewer before putting the now freshly cleaned wooden spick back on her plate and try to refill her now empty plate with an overflowing quantity of meat once again, Leo even wondered if her stomach was a kind of meat blackhole...

 _ **―**_ _ **Even though I told her over and again to eat more healthily...**_

 _ **―**_ _ **Besides meat and cakes, did she even ate anything else~?**_

Two different voices were heard once again, both were males and showed care to the girl. Leo would usually block them or ignore them, in the best case he would be able to send them away once again like he did after Elliot became an Illegual Contractor. But yet he can't shake it off, it was as if _their_ caring feelings for the girl were affecting him too. It was a plausible explanation for why he started to care so much about someone he just met, yet this feeling didn't felt unpleasant at all. As if in some kind of past life, he also took care of someone like that, thus...

"AH! What are you doing, Four-Eyes?!" Alice cried out upon seeing Leo placing some green vegetables from the buffet on the meat she wanted to take in her plate.

Leo just ignored her annoyed expression that seems to menace him though it has no effect on him as he calmly drank more tea. "You eat too much meat and not enough vegetables." However he thought the same as those voices, she didn't ate enough vegetable, and for someone who didn't had enough food during his childhood to fill his stomach, he can't allow such an unbalanced diet.

"I don't like them!"

"It's not a question of like or dislike, you must eat them."

"It's bitter!"

"But also good for your health."

"How can something that taste so disgusting be good for my health! Besides I'm a Chain! There is no need for me to follow human's antics! I'm fine with meat only."

"But did you knew that if there weren't vegetables then meat wouldn't exist?"

"Wh–what?!" Alice stopped to argue as she heard something that she never expected, what was this glasses guy saying? Yet since his face didn't seemed to joke, she can't help but wonder if there was some truth in his words.

Leo knew that he was lying in some way though, but he needed to make her do what she must; eating vegetables, that is! Thus he adopted his most serious face and pushed his glasses on his nose to act more effect, he learnt that it worked well to show how serious one were in the detective novels he recently read: "You know that most of the meat you are eating come from living animals, and those same living animals eat vegetables (grass) to grow up, survive and then become tasty before being cooked and appear in your plate. Thus if you aren't eating any vegetable, you would no longer be able to eat meat!"

"...!" It was as if the thunder itself strucked Alice's heart. As if her whole world, everything that she had learned and lived up until now had been turned into the inverse sense, as if the ground changed places with the sky, Alice found herself floating in the middle of the void of her mind... so that disgusting and bitter green cooked leaves were what was giving birth to this miraculously delicious meat?! Impossible, impossible, but what if what he said was true?! If she didn't ate them... there would be no more meat for her to eat?!

 _'...It's working more easily than I expected, I guess that she is just an innocent girl behind her bloody rabbit façade. Now time to add the finish touch―'_ He pointed a finger at her which caught Alice's attention as she looked him in a lost manner, of course she would, he just revealed her something that changed her entire world. "Now listen me to way, you are saying that you are Oz-kun's master, aren't you...?"

"Of course I am!"

"Then allow me to reveal you this; Oz-kun who is your servant is able to eat a full plate of those vegetables you hate so much with no difficulty (maybe), he would be later on reward for his efforts with a lot of delicious meat. And yet you dare to call yourself Oz-kun's master while you can't even finish the minuscule amount of vegetables that I have placed on your plate, in the end this prove that the master is weaker than the servant!" Leo finished in a dramatic manner (he took this idea from a theater piece he read the previous day) while an arrow carrying all his words went to pierce through her chest. Alice started to tremble and while Leo thought that maybe he used the wrong method to handle her _―_

"A–a–a _―_ AS IF I WOULD LOSE AGAINST THAT IDIOT _―_?!" With that Alice grabbed her fork in a determined manner and planted it inside the small mouthful of vegetable but after biting inside them, she immediately went blue and wanted to spit them out, yet the words that Leo pronounced earlier and her own pride didn't allowed her to be inferior to her servant, thus she ended up chewing them and swallowed them.

"Good! You managed to eat them! Now I will add some more, be ready!"

"W–what did you say...?!"

"Don't think that you can get away with such an insignifiant amount! Or do you truly wish to lost against Oz-kun of all people?"

"Guh... Bring it on!"

"This is the spirit! And one more plate of vegetable to go with it!"

"Ack...!"

And thus Alice had no choice but to chug all the vegetables Leo brought to her because of her too prideful nature while Leo was serious about making Alice eat vegetables until the end of the tea party. It was an interesting side to see that untamable B-Rabbit obeying at a stranger yet Alice shared an unknown feeling of familiarity with Leo which he reciprocated thus making her unable to disobey him when he is scolding her like that... yet the two acted like this but only after the tea party realized that they never learned each other's name and would eventually forget about it... but with that the two figures; one darker and the other lighter that Leo saw earlier didn't appeared again, nor did they spoke again, did they became satisfied with the ending of the earlier situation too...? He wondered so but he didn't knew so he ended up forgetting about it too.

(Despite all the amazing experiences he lived through, Oz was beyond shocked upon seeing a teary-eyed Alice chugging all the vegetables in her plate... or rather that she is even eating them as instead of the meat she usually loved as if her life depended of it. Elliot, him, was also shocked but for a completely different matter; that he might had discovered a completely new side that he never knew about his valet... and somehow disturbed him when he saw this same valet having fun upon forcing a girl to eat a mountain of vegetables.)

 _―_ In the sky the image of a short black-haired and violet-eyed young man scolding a long black-haired red-eyed young woman in a distant past was now replaced by an image of a shoulder-length messy black-haired glasses young man forcing a long black-haired violet-eyed young girl eating more and more vegetables in the actual present. There was no need to say it was who and who.

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 **A/N.:** **Now it's done! I originally wanted to make Oz and Elliot appear but I had decided against that in the end... It was originally supposed to be a kind of remake of Lacie and Oswald's relationship, but I wonder if I made Leo and Alice too OOC? You can also say that the familiarity is because Oswald used to take care of Alice in a similar manner, and by the way the voices who spoke are Oswald and Levi, the only Glens who interacted with Alice... Anyway, please review your impressions about it!**


End file.
